Although in his diaries the composer revealed various dilemmas associated with the creative process, when it came to Fragments to words by Juliusz Słowacki, he did not reveal the sources of his fascinations. Hypothetically we can point to both his vast interests and erudition as well as his meetings with Father Jan Twardowski, who was the patron of Three Psalms and Liturgia sacra, and perhaps also suggested the poem Góry się ozłociły to the composer.

The middle fragment of Juliusz Słowacki's 1843 mystery poem, which was selected by Mycielski and the generic classification of which still has not been determined, becomes a Christmas carol. Although Słowacki’s text lacks an image of a manger and adoration scenes typical of Christmas idylls, the poet uses sophisticated stylistic means to paint the unearthly aura accompanying the Mystery of the Nativity. 

When getting down to setting the text the composer opted for a technique developed in 1957–1960 and described by Iwona Lindstedt (Iwona Lindstedt, Dodekafonia i serializm w twórczości kompozytorów polskich XX wieku, Lublin 2001) as table system. The tone row which is the material basis of Fragments highlights in particular the sound of pure fourths and – inversed – pure fifths. The symbolic significance of these note combinations was noted by Mycielski in one of his diary entries from 1982:

Fifths, fourths, octaves, fascination with pure intervals. These are some ‘eternal’ sounds. Sounding intuitively (?) in Gregorian chant in what is not yet art but is music. 

(Zygmunt Mycielski, Niby-dziennik ostatni 1981–1987, Iskty, Warsaw, p. 163, entry from 4 February 1982). 

We may, obviously, wonder about the sense of such far-reaching asceticism, although we should bear in mind that this was a conscious creative decision, that out of the entire spectrum of possibilities the composer selects economical, seemingly colourless means, although this filter – moving complications and unnecessary effects outside of Mycielski’s interests, as it were – makes it possible to leave those elements that may be regarded as the essence, the core of his artistic expression.  

The music of Fragments emerges almost from the darkness of the night. An intoning clarinet motif, highlighting movement of seconds and thirds, blends in with a subtle sound of the violins complemented by a dark sound of the bassoon. Against this background the composer introduces, in an extremely calm manner (“cleanly, without pizzicato”, as Mycielski points out in the sketches), the successive verses of the poem describing a brightened up world. Melodeclamatory passages of male voices, brightened up by the strings in the upper register, gradually gather momentum to illustrate even more hyperbolic images.

The first fragment is complemented by an instrumental interlude, which is suddenly interrupted by female voices calling on shepherds, “people of dawn”, to set off to greet the Child with music. And when the announcement “The Lord has come, Lord the Light” appears with the fragmentation of rhythmic values resulting from the preservation of the natural rhythm of the words, Mycielski abruptly stops all movement and repeats the words, supplying them with increasingly ornate musical figures, emphasising the meaning of the Nativity. The composer adds a benediction to the selected verses from Słowacki’s mystery poem: Peace over the whole creation. 

Michał Bristiger referred to this fragment in an extraordinary poetic manner in a tribute published in Res Facta after the death of Zygmunt Mycielski:

I am now listening how the music ends with the word L-i-gh-t and a musical figure appearing also at the beginning of the piece, against a dark ground, when we still do not know what will come of it, and which comes true at the end. The word begins to glow [świecić in Polish] and contains within itself both the world [świat] and its background [tło] and its – as Miłosz says – ‘fool’s cap’ with the ś and the ć, which the Polish language puts on solemn words and which Zygmunt knocks off the word with his last gesture, allowing the word to shine freely. The voice of the flute breaks away, goes up quietly and calmly until it reaches, in harmony with the last chord, its last note, until it becomes dispersed in a rest – without a fermata, pianissimo and ritenuto a piacere. I am listening to this silence, this moment of departure, this moment of conversation, wanting to whisper: ‘Good night, sweet prince’

Michał Bristiger, “Zygmunt Mycielski” [tribute], Res Facta Nova 1994 no. 1 / 10, p. 9. 

This symbolic, solar motif as “eternal light” was also heard in the earlier, choral Eternal Rest, a quasi-requiem written for a choir in the composer’s home village of Wiśniowa and, at the same time, for himself...

The metaphysics and spiritual maturity attributed to Mycielski’s last compositions and achieved thanks to a coherent concept and exceptional focus, can also be attributed to Fragments, which crowned his creative output. Referring to the invariant model of stages in the creative oeuvre proposed by Mieczysław Tomaszewski, the piece can be classified as one of the soliloquy-like last works. The theme of Christmas tackled by Słowacki is marked by a special awareness of the proximity of the Creator. Given the fact that Mycielski died four months after composing Fragments, the symbolism of the piece becomes particularly telling...